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Best Cold Treats In DFW

July 11, 2012 5:00 AM

Photo Credit: Paciugo via Facebook

One of the best cures for a hot summer day is a cold yummy treat. Whether ice cream, frozen yogurt or some other cold creation, it can be just the thing to settle the heat waves radiating off your skin. When you are looking for the perfect cold treat, here is a list of the best in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Photo Credit: Emilie DesJardins

Best Milkshakes and Malts:

Chip’s is mostly known as a greasy hamburger joint, but has also won awards for its fries, onion rings and shakes. The milkshakes and malts are by far some of the best in the Metroplex. It takes delicious ingredients to make delicious desserts, and these shakes are no exception. Blue Bell ice cream – a Texas staple for a reason – is the main ingredient in Chip’s tasty frozen treat. For only $4.50 a piece, choose between the flavors of chocolate, vanilla, strawberry or great fresh banana. What makes the fresh banana shake so great? You’re just going to have to try one to find out.

Photo Credit: Paciugo via Facebook

Best Gelato:

Although many American shops claim to serve gelato, Paciugo is one of few to serve the authentic Italian treat. Paciugo was founded by an Italian couple and their son after they moved to Dallas from Italy. The first location opened on Lovers Lane and has since expanded, so visit the website to see all the locations around the Metroplex. Paciugo is always inventing new flavors like Guinness or sweet corn thorntree honey, along with traditional gelato flavors like tiramisu and stracciatella (chocolate chip). This is a spot sure to satisfy all specific tastes with over 150 rotating flavors. This gelato has the perfect creamy consistency to make you feel as if you’re stepping into a small Italian shop along the streets of Florence.

Best Ice Cream Sandwich:

Why choose just one dessert when you can have two? Pokey O’s combines freshly baked cookies with creamy, cool ice cream for an amazing frozen treat. Each ice cream sandwich is made to order when you pick from 13 types of cookies and 15 flavors of ice cream (Blue Bell of course). As the website confidently states, this sandwich will be “your next addiction.” Pokey O’s caters too, so you can have ice cream sandwiches made right at your house.

Best Floats:

Highland Park Pharmacy has been around since 1912 and is still an old-time pharmacy and soda fountain in one. You can pick up a bottle of Tylenol and sit down for a sandwich. Sitting on one of the round diner stools at the long counter will make you want to sip a root beer float out of a tall glass. Well, you came to just the right spot for this treat. The floats can be served with root beer, Dr. Pepper or another soda of your choice, and Highland Park keeps it pretty classic, with a healthy serving of ice cream for the soda coating. The old-diner setting makes you feel as if you’re having a post roller-rink date with your honey back in the 50s.

Photo Credit: Yumilicious

Best Frozen Yogurt:

Frozen yogurt shops have been popping up on every corner for the past few years, so what make Yumilicious stand out? The choices. Picking just one flavor of yogurt from the row of dispensers or just two toppings from the multitude of options is not easy. Luckily here, you don’t have to. Since it’s self-serve and priced by weight, you can create any crazy combination you wish, even if that means pumpkin and raspberry yogurt sprinkled with Fruity Pebbles. Come in around the holidays to get your favorite seasonal tastes. But any time of the year, expect to see such unique offerings like avocado, papaya, rum raisin and boysenberry. There are a few other locations around the Metroplex, so visit the website for a list.

Emilie DesJardins currently works in Dallas television and worked with KRLD Restaurant Week for several years before that. She is always trying new places around the Metroplex to find the best food and unique things to do. See her work at Examiner.com.